Country Girl in the Big City

I met my roommate Celeste 12 years ago when we met at Snow College. She has lived in Ephraim since that time. Tonight she got her biggest dose of real city in the form of greedy trick-or-treaters. She bought a bag of candy to give to the kids even though kids rarely come out to apartments. We had been sitting around waiting when the door bell rang. She jumped up and grabbed the candy bucket and outside the door was 3 little kids, a mother and what appeared to be their grandpa. She innocently and trustingly held out the bucket for them to take their treats when they proceeded to start grabbing handfuls. At one point I heard her say "save some for the other kids". As she came back in and shut the door she held up the bucket and it was completely empty. I asked "you gave them all the candy?" and she stated that she was in shock that kids would do this and kept waiting for the parents to step in. I told her kids who would do that in the first place with their parents there are probably not being taught the best manners. Celeste tends to worry incessantly about things no matter what it is. If someone doesn't return a call, or she does something that she thinks was wrong, she will worry about it for weeks until the situation remedies itself. This is something we will be talking about and analyzing for the next week! It has already been the topic of conversation this entire evening. Good thing we have some extra candy we stole from the neighbor who put a bucket outside (we never said we had manners!) Needless to say she is moving back to the country!

Don't ask me!

Ashlyn loves her grandpa. You can be having a great time with her playing and laughing and the second grandpa enters the room, you cease to exist. Now don't get me wrong, I think it is great as he is the best grandpa and loves that little girl so much. I just wish she could acknowledge my presence once in awhile! My theory is that my dad and Brian are a lot alike and playing with grandpa is just like playing with dad!

Grandpa

Just a little note to say that my Grandpa passed away this morning. I have a great picture (I'm hoping) of he and Ashlyn that I will put up with my post as soon as I get it developed (no, I have not made the switch to digital yet!) He went very peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. I have been taking him dinner a couple of times a week for the past little while and we have had some really good conversations. I am glad we were able to spend that time together and I was able to hear some stories that let me know him on a different level. I will truly miss him.

My girls

So my best friend Amy moved to Hawaii almost a month ago taking with her 3 girls that have been such a huge part of my life. I have been a part of their births and watched them grow. It was very hard to see them go and I have often thought of how sad it will be be to hear of their new experiences instead of being there to witness them. I have come to the realization that even though we are far apart in body, we are never far in spirit and love. I can't wait to have the same opportunities that I had with these 3 spirits, and have them with my niece and my new niece or nephew ( and those to follow)! To my friend Amy and her 3 special ones, I love and miss you more than you can know.

I suck!

Ok, I told you all I suck at this but it was my great friend Brooke's comment that made me want to post. This is about her........she asked for it! I have 3 people at work I love and Brooke is one of them. I tend to be the jokester in the office and today as my boss, Linda, and I were waiting for Brooke to get there we decided we needed to play a practical joke on her. Well Brooke and her husband have just built a beautiful new home and moved in about 3 days ago. So I enlisted the help of my gorgeous sister (who proclaimed she would be going to hell for this!) and she proceeded to call Brooke at work and tell her that there was a huge water main break in her area and her new home was being flooded. Well this has been a very stressful time for sweet Brooke and as I am trying not to laugh I look over at her and tears are welling in her eyes. Needless to say I tried to stop the joke at once and let her know about it. Of course being the man that he is, her husband thought it was hilarious and told her she needed to not be a baby. I am sure you can all relate to the supportive husbands in your life! Needless to say I wanted Brooke to know how much I look forward to working each day with her and how much sanity she gives me in the crazy world that we deal with. I hope she can forgive me as my sense of humor is not always the most tactful! I am very scared for the ramifications and payback though-I will be watching my back!

Winter

Ok, so I will try not to do too many sad posts but I think life makes that a little difficult sometimes. My grandpa was put into hospice today and probably does not have that much longer to live and although we have never been really close it made me sad. Have you ever noticed how the fall/winter time tends to make things seem a little sadder than it may be in the warmer months? I just got to thinking that we really have to cherish the good times when we have them and embrace the happiness that comes into our lives, even though at times it seems brief. Life can be very difficult and time goes by so fast and I just hope all of you will spend time today with the ones you love and hug them and kiss them and let them know how much you love them! Know that I love all of you!

Jumpin on the bandwagon!

Ok, so I got sucked into the blogging world but my beautiful sister-in-law made such a good point I could not resist (plus I LOVE looking at hers). I suck at journaling, always have, always will. Jamie told me that you can print these off at the end of the year, and ta-da......Instant journal! So I figured I would try it out and see what happens. I can't promise that I will post everyday and I can't promise that it will be very interesting but I will try my best.